Hel! prayed the dying Witch. Sweet Goddess! Help me!
In a vaulted cavern beneath Castle Nastrond, a young Hel-Witch named Halta Ingasdaughter hung naked in chains. She was attached to a monstrous Skull that rose above the rocky floor several times a human’s height.
The Skull pulsed with purple radiation. A throbbing moan accompanied each glowing pulsation. Sporadic discharges of energy streaked like hissing blue serpents upon its polished surface. During the brief intervals when the Skull did not glow, it reflected flickering orange light from the cavern’s guttering torches. The cold, damp air stank of death.
At the base of the Skull, King Nidhug Ormulfsson stood in gold-trimmed purple robes studying magical glyphs in a mold-stained scroll. Save for holes cut for his eyes, a black hood completely covered his head and face. Before him, other scrolls were strewn upon a worm-riddled wooden table.
Nidhug studied his captive. He sought signs that his spell was working.
Halta’s wrists and ankles were clamped in manacles engraved with sorcerous Runes. Chains anchored her wrists to the edges of the Skull’s eye sockets and her ankles to the corners of its mouth. The magic-imbued manacles and gleaming black spell-chains prevented Halta from using her Witchcraft to get free. Held in an X, she formed a living Gebo Rune, significant in spells for giving or stealing life-energy.
In spite of the Skull’s icy surface and the cavern’s cold air, Halta’s pale skin glistened with the sweat of pain and fear. Her long blond hair clung wetly to her bare flesh. Through blue eyes blurred by constant tears, she saw Nidhug looking up at her. Hatred flared. She defiantly glared back. “Hel curse you!” she hissed.
“Garm’s Blood, Witch,” he responded, “She already has.”
From previous experiments, he could tell that the spell was failing again. His attempt to use a Witch’s magical energy to recharge the Skull to full power was still missing some important element, but what?
The Skull was a Deathgate, a conduit to the shaping power of the formless Gray that veiled Life from Death. Legends claimed each of the Nine Worlds had its own Deathgate, but the Skull below Nastrond did not belong in the world of Humans. The Skull upon which Halta hung was called the War Skull of Hel. It belonged in Helheim with the Forgotten Dead.
An old tale claimed the God Odin postponed His Doom by stealing the Goddess Hel’s Deathgate and thereby the strength She drew from it. An alternate theology claimed Odin stole Hel’s Deathgate to increase His own power, but He cast the Skull into the Earth, hidden from all, when Hel’s Mother, Angrboda, and Father, Loki, avenged Odin’s wrong against Hel with a plot that killed Baldur, Odin’s Son.
Away from its rightful home in Helheim, the conduit Hel’s Deathgate provided to the Gray began to close and its magic to weaken, but so slowly that at first the effect was negligible. With the passing centuries, however, the weakening had become more noticeable and was accelerating.
Nidhug was determined to find a way to reopen the Deathgate and restore its magical potency. His very life, unnaturally extended by sorcery, depended upon the Skull’s power.
With a spasm of pain, Halta felt more of her life force pulled into the Skull. Sensing death drawing near, in her thoughts she again prayed for help to her Goddess and tried to shift her consciousness beyond the physical world. But the spell-chains with which Nidhug had bound her thwarted her efforts. She could not pierce the Gray Veil, and she feared physical death might not end her torment. Rumors said Nidhug had power over the dead. He might enslave her soul.
In desperation, Halta tried harder. Help me, Goddess! She fought through her pain and growing weakness to concentrate her thoughts.
Something nudged her occult consciousness and pushed toward her from the Other Side.
The Gray Veil between the worlds thinned.
Halta’s inner-vision beheld an enthroned queen.
Relief poured through her. Hail, Queen Hel!
Half of the queen’s pale face was beautiful and alive. The other half was dark with disfiguring decay.
Daughter of Inga, keep my visit secret. Nidhug wards this place against me. Your prayers helped me break through. But let him continue to believe I am completely banned.
Your will be done.
I cannot save your life. His protections are too strong. But we can use your death against him. Receive now a vision, and describe for him what you see.
Halta gave herself over to Hel and was drawn into a trance. She saw a black-clad warrior upon a skeletal steed. The beast’s hooves trod a sorcerous spell-wind, never touching the ground. A shield bore Runes sacred to Hel.
In disgust, Nidhug threw down the scroll he had been studying. He again looked up at the Witch and noted the change in her expression, saw her blankly staring eyes.
A vision! he thought. The cursed Witch is having a dying vision!
“Yes!” she cried raggedly, chest heaving with the effort to keep breathing. “Come, warrior of Hel, revenge me! Destroy Nidhug!”
A Hel-warrior? Nidhug thought. Again? After all these years?
Halta’s expression changed from hope to horror. “No! Don’t let Nidhug win again!” She thrashed in her chains and screamed.
Her screams echoed about the cavern. The sorcerer intoned an incantation to penetrate her thoughts. Her screams faded to silence as he broke through—too late. Halta was dead. But not beyond his reach!
He intoned a necromantic incantation, traced Runes of power in the air, and commanded the corpse to speak.
The Witch remained silent.
Her soul resists my power? Nidhug was chilled. Did she have help, from—
Panic rising, Nidhug hurried through an incantation to look for signs of Hel, but he found no trace of the Goddess he so feared and concluded his protections were still intact.
“By whatever counter-spell your soul escaped me, it matters little,” he said to the dead woman. “The conclusion of your vision did not please you,” He chuckled softly, “because you saw me triumph again!”
Satisfied that the Witch’s vision portended him no harm, Nidhug strode from the Cavern of the Skull, leaving the cooling corpse to hang.
* * *
In Helheim, her spirit safe, Halta’s ghost stood before Hel’s golden throne. Halta met Hel’s gaze. My thanks, Goddess.
Hel responded, And mine to you. Nidhug thinks your vision foretold his victory. He will be less concerned than he should when he detects the new warrior I send. He may delay reacting, just a little. Hel shrugged. And that might help, a little. But in truth, even I do not know the outcome. This time, however, my warrior is—different.
Different, Goddess? The vision did not reveal his face.
Hel raised Her withered left hand, little more than bones, and pointed. Beyond that crowd of ghosts, see the two who yet have flesh?
Yes, Halta hesitated, but—
The child and the kneeling woman embracing her looked back at Halta. The woman pulled the child protectively closer.
Goddess? Is your warrior that child’s—mother?
Aye. The purple fire in Hel’s eyes flickered brighter. No one is more dangerous than a parent fighting for their child.